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Fisher: How long until the West takes meaningful action against Russia?

A pro-Russian fighter holds up a toy found among the debris at the crash site of a Malaysia Airlines jet near the village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine, Friday, July 18, 2014. Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners spread out Friday across the sunflower fields and villages of eastern Ukraine, searching the wreckage of a Malaysia Airlines jet shot down as it flew high above the country, killing all aboard.Photo: AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky

The question that has been largely unanswered since Moscow seized Crimea in March and subsequently began encouraging a violent revolt by ethnic Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The question looms much larger since 298 people were killed Thursday when the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet they were travelling on was shot out of the sky in eastern Ukraine by a radar-guided, high-flying, supersonic Russian-made surface-to-air-missile (SAM).

While saying that a thorough investigation was required to discern the facts, U.S. President Barack Obama did everything but accuse the Kremlin of complicity in the murder of those on board the giant Malaysian Airlines jet when he spoke to the White House press corps on Friday.

As Obama spoke, U.S. intelligence contacts were telling American media that they were operating on the assumption that Russia had supplied the insurgents with the lethal weapon system used to attack the Boeing airliner.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has had almost nothing to say about what happened in the skies over Ukraine-Russian border. The usually voluble Russian strongman said Thursday that Ukraine was responsible for the tragedy because the aircraft was shot down over its territory. In remarks to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte — who is mourning the loss of 189 of his countrymen — Putin was said to have declared on Friday that the conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country should be peacefully resolved as soon as possible.

U.S. President Barack Obama answers questions after delivering a statement on the Malaysia Airlines crash over eastern Ukraine in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House July 18, 2014 in Washington, DC. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was allegedly shot down July 17 on Ukraine/Russia border near the town of Shaktersk. Win McNamee/Getty Images

Yes, well, that has been plain to almost everybody since fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine in March after Russians, with murky connections to Moscow’s intelligence and ultranationalist communities, suddenly moved a couple of hundred kilometres north from Russian-occupied Crimea to Ukrainian border areas with Russia where they soon became the leaders of the military and political wings of the separatist movement.

As American officials, including the top general at NATO, Phil Breedlove, have warned for months, Moscow has been menacingly shifting its own army and air force around border areas and has been sending insurgents a steady supply of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and weaponry, including shoulder-fired SAMs, while demanding that the Ukrainian army stand down.

The U.S. and Canada have used the strongest language to denounce Russian irredentism, but there is not much difference between them and their European allies in what they have done to try to stop Russian aggression. The western response has been no more than a hodgepodge of mildly inconvenient economic sanctions against Russian companies and travel bans against a few top businessmen and a few of the thugs operating in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Obama said on Thursday that there are no plans for military action. Nor is there any need to do so because that could quickly lead to the kind of unforeseen consequences that culminated in the attack on the Malaysian jet.

The West does not have to go to war with Russia to force it to abide by unwritten principles of behaviour in Europe that were agreed to after the Second World War and have been only been seriously undermined during the lengthy wars between Serbia and Croatia, Bosnian Muslims and Kosovar Albanians during the 1990s.

Workers inspect the site of a crashed Malaysia Airlines passenger plane near the village of Hrabove, eastern Ukraine Friday, July 18, 2014. Rescue workers, policemen and even off-duty coal miners were combing a sprawling area in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border where the Malaysian plane ended up in burning pieces Thursday, killing all aboard. AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky

The West could cripple Russia’s already teetering economy by announcing draconian targeted sanctions, particularly in the banking sector. That is easier said than done because Russia’s economy now has many economic links with Europe, whose finances are already in a precarious state. But by not making Russia pay much of a price for its adventurism in Ukraine, the Kremlin feels it could do almost anything and get away with it.

There are other ways to get Russia’s attention. France could heed the advice of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who indirectly called for Paris to cancel the sale of two state-of-the-art assault ships to the Russian navy. Russia has already announced that one of those warships will be called the Sevastopol, after the Crimean port city. Underscoring what a game-changer those ships may be to the regional balance of power, a senior Russian officer has boasted that if it had had such an attack platform during its war against Georgia a few years ago it would have been over in a few minutes.

Britain could send home the swarm of children of Russia’s criminal and business elite (the terms are often interchangeable) now being educated at the most expensive private schools in the world. It could also prevent Russians, whose money is of dubious provenance, from snapping up all the best properties in Mayfair and Chelsea.

Germany and the European Union should urgently work with Canada and the U.S. to dramatically lessen their dependence on Russian oil and gas and look at other ways to assist the western European economies that suffer from stiff sanctions against Russia.

As Obama said Thursday, the shooting down of a passenger jet should be “a wake up call” for the West to take a unified stance against Russia over Ukraine. But don’t bet on that happening just yet. Aside from expressing outrage over what happened in the skies above eastern Ukraine, the Europeans have not yet provided any hint that they are finally prepared to do something to check Putin’s ambitions not only in Ukraine, but perhaps soon in Moldova and the Baltic statelets.

There is no excuse for waiting until the next act of barbarity in eastern Ukraine before doing something meaningful about it.

Postmedia's international affairs columnist is Canada's longest serving foreign correspondent. He has lived abroad for 30 years in Europe, the Middle East, Far East and, most recently, Afghanistan. His... read more work has taken him to 155 countries, all U.S. states, Canadian provinces and territories and the Magnetic North Pole. Professional interests include international relations, security issues, conflict zones and the Arctic. Personal enthusiasms include military histories, historical novels, hockey, baseball, fishing for pickerel and travel by train or ship to anywhere.View author's profile